1. Field of the Invention
My invention relates generally to water closets or toilets and more particularly to an ancillary structure positionable about a toilet stool that provides an auxiliary toilet seat powered for vertical and tilting motion.
2. Background and Description of Prior Art
Water flushed toilets have become an almost universally present fixture in modern bathrooms in the Western world, and through their history has been long and their development has become sophisticated, the common water flushed toilets of the present day can present substantial problems of use by infirm or disabled persons who may have substantial problems in entering on, using and exiting from the toilet fixtures. These problems have been recognized and various solutions heretofore proposed. Most of those solutions however have not had much universality, but rather have been directed toward use with particular toilet fixtures or toward solving particular problems of use of the fixtures by persons having particular infirmities or disabilities. None of such prior fixtures have had sufficient universality to service a substantial number of the various toilet devices available in the present day market place nor do they solve use problems with all or a substantial number of persons having differing disabilities or infirmities. The instant powered toilet seat seeks to solve or alleviate various of these unsolved toilet use problems of the infirm and disabled.
An ordinary chair type seat of commerce usually has a height of approximately 15 to 16 inches above a supporting surface, though the seat of modern toilets commonly has a height of approximately 13 to 14 inches above an underlying supportive surface and the tendency of change in height of modern toilet seats, if any, seems to be downward, probably to tend to decrease toilet cost and increase functional utility for persons not having disabilities or infirmities. These standards however, insofar as disabled or infirm persons are concerned, tend to make modern toilets even less accessible and useful than were various of their older counterparts.
Past efforts to make standard commercial toilets more accessible and useful for the infirm and disabled have generally centered about a first class of devices that provide supports adjacent a toilet stool that can be manually grasp by a user to aid ingress and egress from the toilet stool and a second class of devices that provide an auxiliary seating surface spacedly above the normal toilet stool seat to support the disabled or infirm user at a higher position which is easier to enter and exit from. The instant invention provides a device of the second class that has a powered seat structure providing both vertical and forwardly tilting seat motion.
Auxiliary supports of the first class have long been known and probably presently are the most common type of devices used to aid infirm and disabled persons in using toilet fixtures. The supports however, are not universally useable. If the supports constitute an unattached movable structure, such as a walker, the device is not necessarily positionally stable to safely support the toilet user and if the support is fixedly positioned on some secondary stable support such as a wall, floor supporting the toilet, or the toilet itself, the supports tend to disrupt the functional utility of both the bathroom and toilet fixture therein for both able and disabled users. Such secondary support structures usually required, or at least need, for safety and security the presence of a second person in the bathroom chamber to aid and secure a disabled or infirmed person in using the toilet. This somewhat limits the support""s utility because of the required presence of a second person and the social mores that have developed in Western cultures concerning the privacy of toilet functions.
Probably the most common of the second class of toilet aids for the disabled and infirm, that provides a support spacedly above the ordinary toilet stool seat, has been a simple tubular extension or xe2x80x9ccollarxe2x80x9d that merely rests on an existing toilet seat to support a user spacedly thereabove. A common modern day embodiment of this collar comprises a tubular cylinder of usually 4 to 8 inch height and approximately 12 to 14 inch external diameter that rests, and is entirely supported on the upper surface of the ordinary toilet seat. Though these collars are of simple and economic construction, they may not be positionally stable, as they are positionally maintained only by reason of friction between adjacent surfaces of the extension collar and the supporting toilet seat. A user may easily and accidentally move the collar partially or completely from the toilet seat to possibly cause the user to fall therefrom. Such collars for safety may be associated with some type of external support for positional maintenance, but such association generally tends to lessen potential benefits of both of the associated devices. It is particularly difficult and hazardous for a person aided by crutches or a wheelchair to use an unsupported extension collar on a toilet seat.
Various heretofore known chair and stool-like seating devices that have generally provided vertically movable seating elements have moved downwardly either responsive to a user""s weight to store kinetic energy in a biasing element such as a spring to aid user egress or responsive to inertial forces generated by an entering or seated user to serve as a shock absorber. These seating devices generally provide some type of a medial support structure for the seat element, and by reason of this have not generally been associated with toilets as auxiliary seating structures because the medial supports would interfere with or disrupt the toilet function. Though some such seating devices have provided angulated motion of the seat structure to aid a user entering and exiting the seats and have been moved by a user""s weight, or stored kinetic energy initially generated by the user""s weight, they generally have not powered such motions such as by a user controllable electric motor or otherwise.
In the recent past, it has become known to provide a seat structure for a toilet stool that is powered for vertical motion, such as described by Okita, et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,737,780. This seat lifting device however, provides no powered seat tilting motion and in general would require the use of some auxiliary support structure of the first class invalid toilet support devices or a human assistant to make the device safely usable, especially by more severely disabled or infirm users.
The instant powered toilet seat lift differs from this prior art in providing a stand alone device with a U-shaped casement that fits about many, if not most, existing toilet stools and with seat structure adjustably powered for both vertical and tilting motion relative to the casement. The seat structure is moved by four quadrentially positioned jackscrews, each separately powered by an electric motor communicating through a gear drive to provide screw motion of appropriate speed for the safe powered motion of the seat element. The motors are operated by electric control apparatus that provides either user selectable or preprogrammed motion. The four jackscrews are of a compound nature to provide a strong and reliable mechanical support for the seat structure in all positions, while yet providing forward tilting motion in a vertical plane, especially to aid a user in entering and exiting the seat.
The toilet seat lift is self-contained and independent of a toilet fixture with which it is used. The seat lift may be removed from about an associated toilet fixture if it is not desired for continuous use or it may be attached to the underlying floor for semipermanent but yet removable positioning if desired. It also may be used in association with the toilet fixture in either fixed or non-fixed mode by non-disabled users, especially in its lowered position which makes the use of the toilet fixture substantially the same as if the seat lift were not present. The use of the auxiliary seat structure requires no modification of the toilet fixture with which it is to be used and requires no modification of the structural elements of the toilet closure or area in which the associated toilet fixture is located.
My toilet seat lift provides a casement that is large enough, heavy enough, and so configured as to provide positional stability on an underlying supportative surface without mechanical attachment to that surface. The casement also provides an upper surface that is of greater area and lateral extent than an ordinary toilet seat to not only support the auxiliary toilet seat but also to allow casement support of two upstanding grasping bars inwardly adjacent each side of the seat and a rearward upstanding support behind the seat to provide a substantially greater support function than do ordinary prior auxiliary toilet seat structure.
All of these different structures and functions distinguish my powered auxiliary toilet seat from previously known devices of the same class. My invention resides however, not in anyone of these features individually, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of its structures which necessarily give rise to the functions flowing therefrom.
My powered toilet seat lift provides a peripherally defined U-shaped casement, having two similar sides each defining internal chambers and interconnected by a forward end, to fit about the side and front portions of a toilet stool. The internal chambers of the sides each carry two elongately spaced powering mechanisms, each having a motor operatively communicating through a transmission with a compound jackscrew carried for controlled vertical motion above the upper edges of the side chambers. At least the rearward laterally opposed pair of jackscrews are pivotally mounted on the casement bottom to allow motion somewhat angulated to the vertical. The four compound jackscrews support a toilet seat structure above the upper surface of the casement for vertical motion and pivotal motion in an elongate vertical plane. The toilet seat structure defines a medial orifice vertically above the upper orifice of a toilet stool about which the toilet seat lift is to be used and carries an auxiliary toilet seat on its upper surface about the periphery of the orifice. A pair of opposed upstanding hand rails are carried by the toilet seat structure inwardly adjacent each side and laterally of the auxiliary toilet seat and an upstanding U-shaped support is carried rearwardly of the auxiliary toilet seat to aid user support.
Control apparatus carried in the casement side chambers regulates operation of the powering mechanisms that move the four jackscrews. The control apparatus regulates the direction and amount of rotation of each powering mechanism motor to provide angulated and vertical motion of the toilet seat structure responsive to either direct user control or selectable preprogrammed control instructions. The powering motors are of a direct current stepping type to allow accurate-control for required syncronation. The control apparatus has motor motion and jackscrew position sensors to allow feedback type control of toilet seat structure motion and positioning.
In providing such a device, it is:
A principal object to provide a powered auxiliary toilet seat lift having a U-shaped casement to fit about toilet stools of various manufacturers that carries a toilet seat structure thereabove for vertical and angulated motion over a serviced toilet stool.
A further object is to provide such a toilet seat lift wherein the toilet seat structure is moved by four quadrantally arrayed jackscrews, at least the laterally paired rearward two of which are pivotally mounted to allow both vertical and forwardly angulated motion of the toilet seat structure.
A further object is to provide such jackscrews that are of a compound telescoping nature with screws and nuts of the same pitch in all compound elements to allow similar extension of the jackscrews upon similar rotation, notwithstanding which compound element rotates.
A further object is to provide such a toilet seat lift wherein the compound jackscrews are individually powered by similar electric stepping motors operating through geared transmissions and controlled by computer based feedback type controls to allow accurate manual or selective pre-programmed operation of both the vertical and tilting motions of the toilet seat structure.
A still further object is to provide such a toilet seat structure having a base of larger size than the traditional toilet seat carried thereby to allow provision of upstanding opposed lateral support bars on each side of the toilet seat base and a rearward upstanding support bar to aid safe usage of the lift by disabled persons without second party aid.
A still further object is to provide such a toilet seat lift that is powered by low voltage direct current to provide greater safety of use in the event of accidental electrical happenings in the lift itself or from the general toilet environment.
A still further object is to provide such a toilet seat lift that is of new and novel design, of rugged and durable nature, of simple and economic manufacture and one otherwise well suited to the uses and purposes for which the device is intended.
Other and further objects of my invention will appear from the following specification and accompanying drawings which form a part hereof. In carrying out the objects of my invention however, it is to be understood that its essential features are susceptible of change in design and structural arrangement with only one preferred and practical embodiment being specified and illustrated as is required, but this is not intended to be limiting.